1 00:00:01,990 --> 00:00:04,510 Utopias come and utopias go. 2 00:00:05,150 --> 00:00:10,810 In this series, we've explored these visions of a good place as blueprints 3 00:00:10,810 --> 00:00:17,330 future societies and as new ways of living, grand designs and experimental 4 00:00:17,330 --> 00:00:19,890 communities that have often failed. 5 00:00:21,010 --> 00:00:23,390 But is there another path to utopia? 6 00:00:24,470 --> 00:00:30,490 Smaller, more human in scale, a spark of creativity, a moment of perfection? 7 00:00:31,230 --> 00:00:33,050 a sense of transcendence? 8 00:00:33,630 --> 00:00:35,630 Can we find utopia within? 9 00:00:36,250 --> 00:00:40,070 Is utopia, after all, just a state of mind? 10 00:00:41,450 --> 00:00:46,570 In this episode, I turn the camera on perhaps the most intriguing aspect of 11 00:00:46,570 --> 00:00:51,750 relationship with utopia, how we relate to the idea as individuals. 12 00:00:53,710 --> 00:00:59,430 This is not about the utopia of the future, but about the utopia of now. 13 00:01:00,030 --> 00:01:02,330 I think it's really beautiful and very powerful. 14 00:01:02,550 --> 00:01:05,630 You could call it the aha moment, that moment when you go, wow. 15 00:01:05,990 --> 00:01:10,530 The ways we've created to immerse ourselves in a better moment. 16 00:01:10,890 --> 00:01:14,690 If I'm reading a crowd, I can build like an entire emotion. 17 00:01:15,690 --> 00:01:21,110 To push the boundaries of art and expression to find authenticity. 18 00:01:21,970 --> 00:01:26,210 People being more expressive, more loving, more argumentative, more of 19 00:01:27,010 --> 00:01:29,290 It's about how the belief in better. 20 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:32,400 pushes us to be all that we can be. 21 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:51,120 If we want to find utopia, perhaps we first need to understand what happens 22 00:01:51,120 --> 00:01:53,460 grand utopian visions fail. 23 00:02:01,290 --> 00:02:06,350 With the Velvet Revolutions of 1989, followed by the rapid collapse of the 24 00:02:06,350 --> 00:02:07,970 Soviet Union in 1991, 25 00:02:08,810 --> 00:02:14,350 it seemed to many Western minds that Eastern Europe had suddenly awoken from 26 00:02:14,350 --> 00:02:18,190 utopian dream, or nightmare, of socialism. 27 00:02:19,290 --> 00:02:24,210 But I think that the toppled statues gathered here in a park in southern 28 00:02:24,210 --> 00:02:29,790 Lithuania reveal a fascinatingly complex story about our relationships. 29 00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:31,520 with utopia. 30 00:02:32,900 --> 00:02:39,080 These are symbols of what was once envisaged as a paradise of equality and 31 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:40,620 power of collective effort. 32 00:02:41,320 --> 00:02:43,780 But it was a utopia that crumbled. 33 00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:49,920 The economy stagnated, party power was often arbitrary and corrupt, and many 34 00:02:49,920 --> 00:02:52,740 people felt that they were not given sufficient freedom. 35 00:02:54,780 --> 00:02:59,840 And yet, as the old system was swept away, Was something lost? 36 00:03:08,380 --> 00:03:11,720 Diamantas Narkivisius is a Lithuanian artist. 37 00:03:13,320 --> 00:03:17,580 Originally trained under the Soviet regime, he gained growing international 38 00:03:17,580 --> 00:03:22,360 attention when he captured the strange emptiness left behind when Soviet 39 00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:24,440 landmarks were suddenly removed. 40 00:03:26,540 --> 00:03:32,420 I was aware that the city would look different when the objects will be gone. 41 00:03:32,680 --> 00:03:37,060 And I wanted really to document the last moment. 42 00:03:39,100 --> 00:03:45,660 In his 2016 work, Doubled Youth, Diamantas recorded the removal of 1950 43 00:03:45,660 --> 00:03:50,960 socialist realist statues from a bridge in central Vilnius. 44 00:03:51,300 --> 00:03:54,720 This is lack of cultural sensitivity. 45 00:03:56,030 --> 00:04:01,510 to understand that when the political regime is gone, the art objects produced 46 00:04:01,510 --> 00:04:07,070 during that regime does not automatically represent that regime. 47 00:04:07,390 --> 00:04:10,210 It becomes cultural objects. 48 00:04:10,510 --> 00:04:14,790 You seem to be suggesting that we still need to respect cultural outputs. 49 00:04:15,290 --> 00:04:21,089 Through culture, we understand history richer and more complex. 50 00:04:25,220 --> 00:04:30,760 Daimanta takes me to the bridge to see what's become of the now post -utopian 51 00:04:30,760 --> 00:04:31,760 space. 52 00:04:32,740 --> 00:04:38,700 So when the sculptures were taken down, the four plinths were standing empty and 53 00:04:38,700 --> 00:04:43,220 they were looking really provocative because they were suggesting that there 54 00:04:43,220 --> 00:04:47,280 something there, obviously, and it's something supposed to be there. 55 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:53,220 And I think for a while there was even an attempt to use them for car 56 00:04:53,220 --> 00:04:59,020 advertisement. It didn't work because I think people started to protest because 57 00:04:59,020 --> 00:05:02,980 it looked very vulgar. And then arrived these pots with the flowers. 58 00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:08,640 I think there will be debates coming what to do with these empty plants in 59 00:05:08,640 --> 00:05:13,800 future. So it strikes me that there's a kind of hunger now for a more socially 60 00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:17,040 aware kind of art to appear back on the bridge. 61 00:05:17,300 --> 00:05:18,540 Do you see it that way? 62 00:05:19,380 --> 00:05:24,540 Well, partly, yes, because I think you should understand that the society 63 00:05:24,670 --> 00:05:29,950 pretty poor during the or even post -socialist period and they were really 64 00:05:29,950 --> 00:05:35,790 to get you know better off you know like get cars and clothing and houses and 65 00:05:35,790 --> 00:05:42,170 film but i think now 25 years later they've got that and then people 66 00:05:42,170 --> 00:05:48,090 think what is next what is the vision because nobody was thinking about kind 67 00:05:48,090 --> 00:05:54,820 future they were thinking about past so we're kind of missing utopian vision I 68 00:05:54,820 --> 00:05:55,820 think so. 69 00:06:00,580 --> 00:06:01,580 Plim. 70 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:04,080 With flowerpots on top of them. 71 00:06:05,500 --> 00:06:11,480 They appear to be metaphors for our society nowadays, perhaps a little short 72 00:06:11,480 --> 00:06:12,800 grand shared aspirations. 73 00:06:14,140 --> 00:06:18,400 Communal utopian ideologies seem to have failed or faded. 74 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:21,080 We're left to shape our own lives. 75 00:06:21,710 --> 00:06:27,190 But we're still searching for that good place, trying to find our own utopias in 76 00:06:27,190 --> 00:06:28,990 our own countless ways. 77 00:06:29,950 --> 00:06:35,010 Perhaps the most commonly held utopian dream today is the idea that you can buy 78 00:06:35,010 --> 00:06:38,750 your way to happiness. You can buy your way to a better place. 79 00:06:39,190 --> 00:06:40,910 It's the utopia of consumption. 80 00:06:45,690 --> 00:06:49,950 We've long been bombarded by advertising with the simple message, 81 00:06:51,710 --> 00:06:52,710 make you happy. 82 00:06:53,010 --> 00:06:58,610 Buying things gives you freedom, choice and control in ways that the socialist 83 00:06:58,610 --> 00:07:00,490 utopias could never match. 84 00:07:00,970 --> 00:07:05,890 But is a consumerist utopia in its own way just another illusion? 85 00:07:06,270 --> 00:07:11,550 How much freedom or control do we really have when our desires are constantly 86 00:07:11,550 --> 00:07:14,070 stimulated but can never be sated? 87 00:07:14,750 --> 00:07:20,030 As new products become available, there's always something else to buy. If 88 00:07:20,860 --> 00:07:25,520 I had a bigger telly, a flatter telly, a curved telly, a 3D telly, a telly with 89 00:07:25,520 --> 00:07:28,860 surround sound, then I would be in a good place. 90 00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:30,580 But of course it's a myth. 91 00:07:30,820 --> 00:07:37,240 The good place of consumption always lies just, just, just beyond reach. 92 00:07:37,560 --> 00:07:39,000 You never quite get there. 93 00:07:39,540 --> 00:07:46,400 This spectacle of capitalism, of consumerism that we live amongst is 94 00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:50,020 into thinking we can find our way to happiness through purchasing. 95 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:02,440 On the face of it, the digital revolution, the massive technological 96 00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:07,220 living through today, seems to promise yet more of that consumerist spectacle. 97 00:08:07,880 --> 00:08:13,720 More than 3 billion of us now live our daily lives hooked to screens that are 98 00:08:13,720 --> 00:08:16,000 often seeking to sell us ever more goods. 99 00:08:17,340 --> 00:08:22,880 Now we can access the promise of a consumerist utopia at the click of a 100 00:08:24,650 --> 00:08:29,090 But is there a more positive story to tell about the digital world? 101 00:08:29,550 --> 00:08:33,970 Can it empower us, be about more than just consumption? 102 00:08:34,909 --> 00:08:40,309 Many digital spaces have been imagined to allow us to create, and just as 103 00:08:40,309 --> 00:08:45,710 importantly, control our own utopias. So this is actually the computer we 104 00:08:45,710 --> 00:08:46,930 created civilization on. 105 00:08:47,130 --> 00:08:50,050 Sid Meier, creator of Civilization. 106 00:08:50,760 --> 00:08:54,100 He's one of the great innovators of the digital revolution. 107 00:08:54,580 --> 00:08:58,920 You had to put eight different disks into your computer and copy them over 108 00:08:58,920 --> 00:09:00,260 your hard drive before you could play. 109 00:09:01,500 --> 00:09:07,960 He pioneered open world strategy games as personal computers filled homes 110 00:09:07,960 --> 00:09:10,480 the planet in the early 1990s. 111 00:09:11,680 --> 00:09:15,580 Civilization. I'm ready. I can do it. Building new world. 112 00:09:15,840 --> 00:09:16,840 All in caps. 113 00:09:18,440 --> 00:09:23,180 In Maya's game, you create your perfect world digitally from the comfort of your 114 00:09:23,180 --> 00:09:27,700 own home, leading people from the dawn of time to the space age. 115 00:09:28,180 --> 00:09:31,520 I'm very touched that you chose to call your tribe the English. 116 00:09:33,340 --> 00:09:34,560 You're welcome. 117 00:09:36,080 --> 00:09:41,420 The desire to create perfect digital worlds has proved popular. In the last 118 00:09:41,420 --> 00:09:46,980 years, Civilization and its sequels have sold over 40 million copies. 119 00:09:48,300 --> 00:09:52,560 And so it falls upon you to fulfill our people's true destiny. 120 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:56,600 Under your leadership, we shall surely prosper. 121 00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:06,720 From the seeds of this small settlement shall you grow our empire. Our people 122 00:10:06,720 --> 00:10:08,120 await your command. 123 00:10:10,460 --> 00:10:13,840 I think there are some real comparisons between... 124 00:10:14,060 --> 00:10:20,680 Certain utopian urges, the desire to explore, to contest and to protect 125 00:10:20,680 --> 00:10:25,100 utopian vision it is that one has, and the game civilization. 126 00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:26,640 Do you agree? 127 00:10:26,680 --> 00:10:30,260 I've never actually looked at it that way, but now that you mention it, I can 128 00:10:30,260 --> 00:10:35,440 see the parallels. In a utopia, I think we'd expect technology to progress and 129 00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:38,840 technology to bring us advances and a better life. 130 00:10:39,580 --> 00:10:43,520 I think we'd expect nations to communicate with each other and work 131 00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:49,260 I think we would expect exploration. I think we'd expect to explore our planet 132 00:10:49,260 --> 00:10:55,200 and after that explore the solar system and the universe around us. So although 133 00:10:55,200 --> 00:10:58,760 Civ wasn't really designed with the idea of utopia in mind, I think many of the 134 00:10:58,760 --> 00:11:03,700 processes that are part of the game would be part of a utopia. 135 00:11:04,020 --> 00:11:08,420 To ensure the safety of our borders, we must defeat the enemy. 136 00:11:08,830 --> 00:11:15,430 at its source in playing civilization there can be quite a desire to 137 00:11:15,430 --> 00:11:21,250 defend your ideal utopian society that you're building there's something very 138 00:11:21,250 --> 00:11:25,350 human about that I do think the players get invested in what they create because 139 00:11:25,350 --> 00:11:26,450 they know that it's unique. 140 00:11:26,850 --> 00:11:29,770 They've designed it, they've built it, they've made all the decisions that went 141 00:11:29,770 --> 00:11:34,510 into getting to this point. So there's a strategy we call turtling, which is 142 00:11:34,510 --> 00:11:38,150 kind of just protecting what you built because you really invested in it and 143 00:11:38,150 --> 00:11:41,810 want to keep it safe from all the forces of the world that are trying to take it 144 00:11:41,810 --> 00:11:42,810 away from you. 145 00:11:45,810 --> 00:11:49,110 There is aggressive expansion, conquer the world strategy. 146 00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:54,580 But there are also culture victories or wonder victories. If you can build these 147 00:11:54,580 --> 00:11:58,020 great wonders, you can win the game. Or if you can bring on world peace, that's 148 00:11:58,020 --> 00:11:59,160 another way of winning the game. 149 00:11:59,960 --> 00:12:04,120 Truly, we have achieved a golden age of peace and cooperation. 150 00:12:08,400 --> 00:12:14,380 Civ has gone from kind of being just a game to people really thinking that it 151 00:12:14,380 --> 00:12:17,100 represents a version of the real world. 152 00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:21,740 And now they start to think, you know, well, I'd really like the world to be a 153 00:12:21,740 --> 00:12:25,240 peaceful place. And I want to try that strategy because it's not just a game on 154 00:12:25,240 --> 00:12:26,019 my computer. 155 00:12:26,020 --> 00:12:30,140 It's kind of a representation of what could happen in the world. And that 156 00:12:30,140 --> 00:12:31,720 a whole different type of thinking. 157 00:12:34,500 --> 00:12:40,780 That whole new type of thinking could be key to building tomorrow's utopias. 158 00:12:42,400 --> 00:12:43,660 Look around you. 159 00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:47,420 The monuments for the old ways of utopian thinking are everywhere. 160 00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:53,880 Religious salvation, empire building, the powerful have shaped our world. But 161 00:12:53,880 --> 00:12:59,280 now, perhaps for the first time in human history, the common man and woman has 162 00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:04,720 been given the chance to design and share their own utopias on a global 163 00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:15,390 Here in a refurbished tobacco warehouse in East London, Young people gather, not 164 00:13:15,390 --> 00:13:20,310 just to get lost in their own utopias, but to use digital tools to make a 165 00:13:20,310 --> 00:13:21,990 difference in the real world. 166 00:13:23,250 --> 00:13:25,050 I'm going to go see the northern light. 167 00:13:25,590 --> 00:13:27,290 Ah, that's exceptionally beautiful. 168 00:13:28,730 --> 00:13:30,050 It's really very mellow. 169 00:13:33,050 --> 00:13:34,310 There's a stick on the floor. 170 00:13:34,790 --> 00:13:35,890 I can pick it up. 171 00:13:37,570 --> 00:13:42,010 So I am now holding a stick into a fire to see whether it burns. 172 00:13:44,170 --> 00:13:45,170 That's amazing. 173 00:13:46,450 --> 00:13:51,090 I think the word digital has been misinterpreted in this age as something 174 00:13:51,090 --> 00:13:54,010 unreal or untouchable, something we can't experience. 175 00:13:54,490 --> 00:13:57,210 For us, it's something that's just in another medium. 176 00:13:57,450 --> 00:14:01,190 It may not be physically touchable, but the experiences that you can have with 177 00:14:01,190 --> 00:14:02,190 it are just as real. 178 00:14:04,030 --> 00:14:06,670 James Delaney is an architect and entrepreneur. 179 00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:12,160 who uses the most influential game of the last decade to give individuals the 180 00:14:12,160 --> 00:14:14,440 tools to rebuild their real environment. 181 00:14:16,940 --> 00:14:22,840 Minecraft, originally a game aimed at children, started as a kind of digital 182 00:14:22,840 --> 00:14:23,840 Lego. 183 00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:29,680 Players place and destroy blocks in an infinite world, limited only by their 184 00:14:29,680 --> 00:14:34,320 imagination. When you're building, could it be the case that another member of 185 00:14:34,320 --> 00:14:35,680 your team is building... 186 00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:41,680 in the same digital space at the same time. And can you see them working? You 187 00:14:41,680 --> 00:14:44,840 can see them working, and that doesn't sound like a big deal, but it makes the 188 00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:48,980 whole process responsive. So every block you place then becomes a response to 189 00:14:48,980 --> 00:14:50,180 what others are building around you. 190 00:14:50,500 --> 00:14:54,460 You're not alone. It's not designing a building from the point of view of a god 191 00:14:54,460 --> 00:14:56,700 or some sort of disconnected view. 192 00:14:57,020 --> 00:15:01,220 You're actually in the world that you're building, and I think that really helps 193 00:15:01,220 --> 00:15:04,780 you think about how the space is going to be experienced and used once you're 194 00:15:04,780 --> 00:15:05,780 finished. 195 00:15:06,440 --> 00:15:12,480 In 2013, James Delaney founded Blockworks, his company which 196 00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:14,920 architectural process through Minecraft. 197 00:15:15,460 --> 00:15:21,420 In this UN -sponsored program, Blockworks introduced Minecraft to a 198 00:15:21,420 --> 00:15:27,160 community in Indonesia so that they could work together in redesigning and 199 00:15:27,160 --> 00:15:28,820 rebuilding their town square. 200 00:15:30,380 --> 00:15:34,440 So as part of the community consultation, we discussed their 201 00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:39,120 space. Playground for the children who didn't have a place to play, water 202 00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:40,120 fountains, fresh water. 203 00:15:40,520 --> 00:15:44,440 The elders of the village wanted to see this traditional Javanese hut. 204 00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:48,620 And this is all co -designed with the people who are going to end up living in 205 00:15:48,620 --> 00:15:49,299 the space? 206 00:15:49,300 --> 00:15:50,620 Yeah, absolutely. It comes from them. 207 00:15:50,940 --> 00:15:56,020 I give them a brief talk on the concepts of public space and different examples 208 00:15:56,020 --> 00:15:58,940 from around the world, but ultimately it's up to them what they want to see 209 00:15:58,940 --> 00:16:04,700 there. And I think this taps into a completely new way of thinking about 210 00:16:04,700 --> 00:16:11,120 design, which is bottom -up. The architect, as brilliant as he is, is 211 00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:14,760 of autocratic in his design of public space, and it's his vision of what that 212 00:16:14,760 --> 00:16:15,699 space should be. 213 00:16:15,700 --> 00:16:21,080 But surely public space, which serves the community, the design of that and 214 00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:24,520 experience of that needs to come from the people who are going to use it. 215 00:16:28,140 --> 00:16:32,080 I can't help thinking that computing power and connectivity are enabling 216 00:16:32,080 --> 00:16:38,200 extraordinary new ways of engaging with and shaping the world, especially among 217 00:16:38,200 --> 00:16:39,260 the younger generations. 218 00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:46,320 New forms of digitally empowered utopianism with roots back in hack 219 00:16:52,480 --> 00:16:56,600 The idea of a bottom -up digital revolution isn't new. 220 00:16:57,150 --> 00:17:02,430 Hacking started as a way to find workarounds and cut -throughs. Because 221 00:17:02,430 --> 00:17:08,230 limitations of early computing in the 1960s, often unfairly stereotyped and 222 00:17:08,230 --> 00:17:13,390 bracketed with cyber criminals, real hackers are not what you might expect. 223 00:17:17,960 --> 00:17:23,579 Here at an international hacking event in central London, 200 of Europe's best 224 00:17:23,579 --> 00:17:28,840 student hackers are gathered for a 24 -hour hackathon to 225 00:17:28,840 --> 00:17:35,340 find digital solutions to real -world problems in one packed day. 226 00:17:37,320 --> 00:17:38,860 So where are you guys all from? 227 00:17:39,240 --> 00:17:43,880 I'm from New York. I'm from Germany. This event seems to be about the power 228 00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:44,880 collaboration. 229 00:17:45,180 --> 00:17:47,740 when it's unimpeded by power structures. 230 00:17:48,900 --> 00:17:52,300 What are you hacking? What's the theme? Are you picking up on a theme? We are 231 00:17:52,300 --> 00:17:55,240 doing automated search and rescue for disaster situations. 232 00:17:55,720 --> 00:18:00,480 Essentially the idea is to fly a drone over a big area and then we 233 00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:02,620 recognise where people are that need to be rescued. 234 00:18:02,820 --> 00:18:05,580 So I'm kind of trying to get that to work. 235 00:18:06,010 --> 00:18:07,950 This is the recipe for real social good. 236 00:18:08,210 --> 00:18:11,590 You're not just adding knowledge to each other. You're multiplying knowledge, 237 00:18:11,730 --> 00:18:16,370 right? I came here with like, well, I need some with the idea. And I thought 238 00:18:16,370 --> 00:18:20,170 like, well, on my own, this will take quite a bit of time to do because I have 239 00:18:20,170 --> 00:18:21,290 to acquire quite a bit of knowledge. 240 00:18:21,550 --> 00:18:24,850 But taking it to a hackathon, you have the opportunity to meet people with 241 00:18:24,850 --> 00:18:29,010 different knowledge backgrounds and then putting everything together. And I'm 242 00:18:29,010 --> 00:18:30,290 really accelerating this idea. 243 00:18:30,510 --> 00:18:34,330 So you've got a brilliant answer for the good of humanity, for social good. 244 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:39,800 Is there any interest, and be honest, in then trying to sell it? 245 00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:43,600 The best part about the hackathon is we put all that aside and we say, let's 246 00:18:43,600 --> 00:18:47,900 just fix this, let's build a product, and then we'll worry about money or jobs 247 00:18:47,900 --> 00:18:51,520 or prestige or merit or acknowledgement. 248 00:18:52,020 --> 00:18:54,480 Essentially, it's fun for business after. Exactly. 249 00:18:55,660 --> 00:19:00,620 The media often represent hackers as loners locked in their own obsessions. 250 00:19:00,980 --> 00:19:02,980 In fact, real hacking... 251 00:19:03,290 --> 00:19:08,230 is about inventive teamwork it's a revolutionary mode of collaborative 252 00:19:08,230 --> 00:19:12,830 and doing there is that thing of you're learning together you're building 253 00:19:12,830 --> 00:19:17,070 together and you share it with each other and open source communities and 254 00:19:17,070 --> 00:19:18,510 everything like that and it doesn't really matter 255 00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:23,160 Anything about who you are as a person, how you identify, anything like that. 256 00:19:23,260 --> 00:19:27,040 All of those things are kind of forgotten when you're on a team together 257 00:19:27,040 --> 00:19:28,420 building anything. 258 00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:33,560 And that's really nice. And it's not something that I've seen many other 259 00:19:34,380 --> 00:19:39,900 Hackathons, it's always, you're all at the end of the 24 hours pretty, pretty 260 00:19:39,900 --> 00:19:40,899 raw. 261 00:19:40,900 --> 00:19:46,480 And then go off to your bath -blown corners of the world. To sleep for a 262 00:19:46,480 --> 00:19:50,260 sleep. but everybody's in the same position and that makes it really nice 263 00:19:50,260 --> 00:19:52,960 everybody's here to do the same thing and build something cool. 264 00:19:56,800 --> 00:19:59,020 Hackers are no isolated example. 265 00:19:59,700 --> 00:20:04,020 What they embody, the flattening of the world, the belief that the individual 266 00:20:04,020 --> 00:20:09,040 can make a difference and that hierarchies cannot constrain creativity 267 00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:15,280 personal expression, is part of a rich theme of utopian culture, a deeper 268 00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:17,730 tradition. that has shaped our history. 269 00:20:26,710 --> 00:20:31,110 Look closely and you see that the people have been revolting for centuries. 270 00:20:34,090 --> 00:20:40,130 In St Mary's Parish Church in Worley, Lancashire, carved into the medieval 271 00:20:40,130 --> 00:20:43,550 seats, you find a much older kind of hacking. 272 00:20:50,060 --> 00:20:51,820 It's a bit of a weird puzzle. 273 00:20:52,760 --> 00:20:58,580 Why have we got profane imagery sitting in a parish church in Lancashire? 274 00:20:59,460 --> 00:21:06,100 Here we see a blacksmith replete with all these tools, shooing a goose. 275 00:21:06,860 --> 00:21:07,860 It's insane. 276 00:21:12,500 --> 00:21:19,260 Under other seats, we find a girl with a fat ear, a warrior, being beaten 277 00:21:19,260 --> 00:21:20,640 by a woman with a pan. 278 00:21:21,620 --> 00:21:26,280 The pagan and the pious are mixed up in absurd juxtaposition. 279 00:21:28,140 --> 00:21:33,100 To understand these images, we need to understand the significance in the 280 00:21:33,100 --> 00:21:35,620 medieval mindset of the carnival. 281 00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:42,520 Every year at Throvetide, before the abstinence of Lent, normal rules and 282 00:21:42,520 --> 00:21:47,220 hierarchies were hacked during a period of utopian excess. 283 00:21:49,770 --> 00:21:55,210 It's a fleeting part of the year, also captured by artists like Peter Bruegel 284 00:21:55,210 --> 00:22:00,230 the Elder, who depicts fun and frivolity breaking out prior to the dreary grind 285 00:22:00,230 --> 00:22:03,090 of Lent and the return to daily life. 286 00:22:03,850 --> 00:22:09,390 However alien today, the carnival's turning the world upside down is 287 00:22:09,390 --> 00:22:14,470 that Thomas More, author of the disruptive fiction Utopia, would have 288 00:22:14,470 --> 00:22:15,470 familiar with. 289 00:22:24,490 --> 00:22:29,110 In the run -up to Easter, the world was turned upside down. 290 00:22:29,530 --> 00:22:32,650 Women would dress as men and men would dress as women. 291 00:22:32,930 --> 00:22:37,190 Social relations would become completely unruly compared to the norm. 292 00:22:37,810 --> 00:22:39,570 People would drink in excess. 293 00:22:40,190 --> 00:22:44,230 They'd be out on the street. They'd elect a king of fools. 294 00:22:45,610 --> 00:22:48,370 The week of Carnival was really important. 295 00:22:49,210 --> 00:22:53,890 It was a steam valve. It allowed tensions that built up during the year. 296 00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:55,960 to relax a little. 297 00:22:56,760 --> 00:23:01,720 But come the end of the week, people were almost certainly longing for a 298 00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:03,400 to something a little more stable. 299 00:23:05,820 --> 00:23:11,700 In nearby Middleton, Greater Manchester, this tradition of the citizens' utopia 300 00:23:11,700 --> 00:23:12,700 survives. 301 00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:20,860 This is the annual Pace Egg 302 00:23:20,860 --> 00:23:24,320 play. a revival of medieval customs. 303 00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:27,120 I am the bold Prince Regent. 304 00:23:28,100 --> 00:23:31,380 I rule in this king's stead. 305 00:23:31,780 --> 00:23:34,580 And so I am his only heir. 306 00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:36,760 Full as none upon his head. 307 00:23:37,940 --> 00:23:41,200 The players mock traditional authority figures. 308 00:23:41,820 --> 00:23:44,120 And I come to fight for old England's right. 309 00:23:46,700 --> 00:23:49,980 Drop on their heads, or drop on their hearts. 310 00:23:52,100 --> 00:23:55,880 Arise, arise, most noble man to rise, and no more dormant lay. 311 00:23:56,620 --> 00:23:57,640 Thank you very much. 312 00:23:59,900 --> 00:24:06,520 At Easter, 313 00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:09,340 the play is taken through six local pubs. 314 00:24:09,980 --> 00:24:13,020 Oh, is there a noble doctor to be found? 315 00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:15,680 Becoming more and more slurred. 316 00:24:20,650 --> 00:24:24,110 more anarchic, and more ridiculous. 317 00:24:28,590 --> 00:24:32,510 It might 318 00:24:32,510 --> 00:24:39,130 all seem frivolous, but there's a deeper 319 00:24:39,130 --> 00:24:40,130 purpose here. 320 00:24:41,530 --> 00:24:43,610 We're watching the face egg today. 321 00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:47,220 It seems to me like anyone in authority is fair game. 322 00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:48,279 Oh, absolutely. 323 00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:52,460 Yeah, things like this are an opportunity for the downtrodden, as it 324 00:24:52,460 --> 00:24:54,200 just get a little bit back, you know. 325 00:24:54,600 --> 00:25:00,120 Well, it's always the case, wasn't it? It was the holiday where the people, the 326 00:25:00,120 --> 00:25:01,640 servants and so on, became in charge. 327 00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:06,860 And, you know, the lords of the manor waited on the servants and they had 328 00:25:06,860 --> 00:25:11,120 special day. And it's all like turning things on the tail and, you know... 329 00:25:11,390 --> 00:25:12,930 putting it back at the authority. 330 00:25:17,110 --> 00:25:23,970 Well, Lancashire remains as loopy as it was when I 331 00:25:23,970 --> 00:25:25,290 was growing up, that's for sure. 332 00:25:26,270 --> 00:25:27,610 I kind of love this. 333 00:25:27,810 --> 00:25:31,630 The world is turned upside down at least one day a year in Middleton. 334 00:25:32,790 --> 00:25:34,230 The fools take over. 335 00:25:34,810 --> 00:25:38,810 The kings seem to fall and rise again. The doctors are mocked. 336 00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:43,440 And these guys who are doing this, these payseggers, they all understand that 337 00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:47,800 they're part of a rich old tradition of mocking power, laughing at authority, 338 00:25:48,020 --> 00:25:52,620 just to let off a little steam before going back to the usual relations. 339 00:25:56,380 --> 00:26:03,320 The carnival is about coming together and sharing a moment of freedom 340 00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:06,980 from everyday rules, breaking through inhibitions. 341 00:26:07,580 --> 00:26:11,600 It's an idea that has spurred countercultures throughout history. 342 00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:18,920 Music has often been at the leading edge of this revolt against the mainstream. 343 00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:24,340 In recent times, it's through musical innovation that downtrodden minorities 344 00:26:24,340 --> 00:26:28,040 have found moments of escape and transcendence. 345 00:26:34,380 --> 00:26:40,220 In 1980s Chicago, that minority was made up of often poor, black, gay men. 346 00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:48,040 They found a creative release by subverting established disco music, 347 00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:52,840 the best parts of songs, and mixing the beats with a distinctive bass line. 348 00:26:58,140 --> 00:27:00,420 This was house music. 349 00:27:00,860 --> 00:27:02,920 Music designed to get you dancing. 350 00:27:03,630 --> 00:27:04,630 All night long. 351 00:27:06,910 --> 00:27:09,990 It was not just blazing hot, but it was damp. 352 00:27:10,570 --> 00:27:12,630 You couldn't wipe the sweat away enough. 353 00:27:13,390 --> 00:27:17,510 People were really dancing, like their life depended on it, like there was 354 00:27:17,510 --> 00:27:19,850 something in it for them beyond just a good feeling. 355 00:27:20,690 --> 00:27:25,570 You had a moment of absolute freedom. And as a teenager, that's a big deal, 356 00:27:25,570 --> 00:27:28,330 know. And you're looking for a real experience. 357 00:27:28,550 --> 00:27:31,910 It was the most real thing that I've ever run across. 358 00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,680 Charles Matlock was right there in the earliest days of house. 359 00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:42,840 He explains how in clubs, like the Subterranean Music Box in downtown 360 00:27:43,260 --> 00:27:49,040 there was a new utopian search for authentic experience, spawning the 361 00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:52,160 youth revolution since the 1960s. 362 00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:57,540 There are largely marginalized communities that were part of the scene 363 00:27:57,540 --> 00:28:01,500 black kids, Latin kids, large gay community. That was a gay club, so it 364 00:28:01,500 --> 00:28:02,199 power plant. 365 00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:07,220 And so for straight kids to be going there, it really was something that you 366 00:28:07,220 --> 00:28:12,060 gay friends and you knew it existed, but going to a place where you were in the 367 00:28:12,060 --> 00:28:15,440 minority and realizing that they're just people, and they're people that like 368 00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:20,260 partying the same as you, you realize that these kind of artificial lines that 369 00:28:20,260 --> 00:28:21,320 we make between... 370 00:28:22,110 --> 00:28:24,810 straight and gay and black and white and what have you, they're really 371 00:28:24,810 --> 00:28:27,250 artificial. And they're boundaries that are made up by us. 372 00:28:27,490 --> 00:28:31,610 And if we don't choose to adhere to them, they really truly don't exist. 373 00:28:32,010 --> 00:28:37,930 So the dance floor becomes a kind of melting pot where music that is a 374 00:28:37,930 --> 00:28:42,130 of a melting pot is celebrated and brings communities together. 375 00:28:42,430 --> 00:28:46,710 It is truly one of those things that all you have to have in common with anybody 376 00:28:46,710 --> 00:28:51,880 else is enjoying this music and wanting to dance to it. With these clubs, A kind 377 00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:56,660 of escape for the communities of young people who are colliding inside them. 378 00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:03,860 Absolutely. It did provide an escape and also safe spaces such that, again, 379 00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:08,740 straight kids going to a gay club, I'd never look over my shoulder and say, 380 00:29:08,820 --> 00:29:12,380 you know, is anybody who doesn't like me thinking about doing something harmful 381 00:29:12,380 --> 00:29:16,620 to me? But members of the gay community certainly did. And so this was a place 382 00:29:16,620 --> 00:29:20,230 that... they could have as their own and be themselves and not have to worry 383 00:29:20,230 --> 00:29:21,230 about anybody. 384 00:29:22,430 --> 00:29:26,010 Just the normal oppression is part of the world. So that was definitely an 385 00:29:26,010 --> 00:29:31,990 escape for them from this. But for all of us, it was an escape from just this 386 00:29:31,990 --> 00:29:36,630 normal world that isn't worried about what might you want. But it's a 387 00:29:36,630 --> 00:29:40,890 release, right? It's a temporary vision of a wonderful reality. 388 00:29:41,470 --> 00:29:46,350 It is, it is. But better to have some time in. 389 00:29:55,159 --> 00:30:00,700 House offered a temporary utopia that could be revisited again and again, and 390 00:30:00,700 --> 00:30:03,200 that successfully mutated across borders. 391 00:30:03,940 --> 00:30:07,200 Transnational, it needs no explanation or language. 392 00:30:10,300 --> 00:30:14,840 When it made its way across the Atlantic, it had a huge influence on 393 00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:15,840 youth culture. 394 00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:17,300 And on me. 395 00:30:23,540 --> 00:30:28,200 One, two, one, two. I don't really know any of them shouting poems for you. 396 00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:35,480 This is one of my heroes of house, 397 00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:36,940 a guy called Gerald. 398 00:30:37,660 --> 00:30:42,700 His house hit, Voodoo Ray, which he composed in a bedroom studio and first 399 00:30:42,700 --> 00:30:48,740 played at Manchester's Hacienda Club in 1988, defined a new era of dance music. 400 00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:52,380 It was an escape. 401 00:30:52,860 --> 00:30:58,580 It was somewhere I could go to and for people like me, 402 00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:03,020 you'd go in through them doors and everything would just change. 403 00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:16,920 Your music and house music took me to a better place on the dance floor. Yeah, 404 00:31:16,940 --> 00:31:20,300 yeah, yeah. And everybody around me on the dance floor was temporarily in a 405 00:31:20,300 --> 00:31:21,099 better place. 406 00:31:21,100 --> 00:31:26,180 How do you feel when you see a dance floor erupt and you see them come 407 00:31:26,180 --> 00:31:27,380 and share this experience? 408 00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:32,700 There's that part of the track and, like, everyone's kind of getting it at 409 00:31:32,700 --> 00:31:33,960 same time what it is. 410 00:31:34,460 --> 00:31:36,760 then yeah, that is, that's the new token. 411 00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:45,140 You're looking in people's eyes and they're like, you know, they're having 412 00:31:45,140 --> 00:31:49,760 like the same as you. And you're like, wow, you can't really buy it. It's just 413 00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:54,700 like this tipping point. It's like this balance that everything like kicks in at 414 00:31:54,700 --> 00:31:55,659 the same time. 415 00:31:55,660 --> 00:31:58,940 I'm reading a crowd and feeling what's going on. 416 00:31:59,610 --> 00:32:04,130 And it's like, you know, I can build, like, an entire emotion just from the 417 00:32:04,130 --> 00:32:05,610 sounds that I've got available. 418 00:32:12,030 --> 00:32:15,170 Watching you on stage, you're in a mental space. 419 00:32:15,390 --> 00:32:17,650 It's almost like a personal utopia. 420 00:32:17,930 --> 00:32:18,930 I do it on the bus. 421 00:32:19,310 --> 00:32:22,850 Like, sometimes the person next to me wants to move, you know what I mean? I 422 00:32:22,850 --> 00:32:27,810 just go off, probably. Like, if I hit that sweet spot, eyes roll back and 423 00:32:27,810 --> 00:32:28,810 everything, I'm sure. 424 00:32:28,910 --> 00:32:29,970 I need to seek help. 425 00:32:31,010 --> 00:32:32,970 A guy called Gerald. 426 00:32:35,790 --> 00:32:41,830 The UK club scene embraced house music and added its own chemical enhancement. 427 00:32:43,810 --> 00:32:49,250 With ecstasy prolonging the moment of euphoria, Acid House was born. 428 00:33:04,010 --> 00:33:08,350 With drugs and music combining to create a form of individual and collective 429 00:33:08,350 --> 00:33:12,590 transcendence, there were echoes of the 1960s counterculture. 430 00:33:13,470 --> 00:33:18,390 Back then, the pop -fueled youth rebellion morphed into a new search for 431 00:33:18,390 --> 00:33:23,030 self through eastern mysticism and ever more exotic drugs. 432 00:33:30,230 --> 00:33:33,410 But not all cultures have needed drugs. 433 00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,220 to achieve an out -of -body experience. 434 00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:52,060 This is Qawwali, the devotional music of Sufi Muslims, which has its root in 435 00:33:52,060 --> 00:33:54,620 medieval era Pakistan and India. 436 00:33:55,620 --> 00:34:01,460 What Qawwali singers do, they embody the idea of taking themselves and audiences 437 00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:03,420 on a spiritual journey. 438 00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:12,920 The central concept in Qawwali is this idea called Qalandri, which comes from 439 00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:13,960 the word Qalandar. 440 00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:16,920 Qalandars are dervishes. 441 00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:31,949 And the etymology of Qalandar is those without limits or boundaries 442 00:34:31,949 --> 00:34:38,650 and in medieval texts kalundas can read people's minds travel backwards 443 00:34:38,650 --> 00:34:45,489 in time and obliterate time and space and what kawali does is makes this its 444 00:34:45,489 --> 00:34:51,210 central concept so the music itself can take you into a similar kind of fate 445 00:34:51,210 --> 00:34:55,570 yeah so what the idea is that kawali is like trance 446 00:34:58,350 --> 00:35:03,570 During a kawali concert, one singer recites poetry and religious phrases 447 00:35:03,570 --> 00:35:10,570 hand gestures, while a second singer improvises responses. 448 00:35:16,850 --> 00:35:22,530 The music builds in intensity as the chorus sings a hypnotic refrain. 449 00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:39,140 By entrancing listeners, through being overwhelmed by the music, their 450 00:35:39,140 --> 00:35:45,880 ego is dissolved, leaving a void. And once the void is created, it leaves 451 00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:50,580 to be absorbed by divine dimensions. 452 00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:58,380 Qawwali music is a cosmic quest. 453 00:35:58,830 --> 00:36:00,010 in search of the beloved. 454 00:36:00,230 --> 00:36:02,690 And more often than not, the beloved is God. 455 00:36:12,450 --> 00:36:19,050 Now, to leave the material world and to enter the spiritual world requires you 456 00:36:19,050 --> 00:36:25,850 to go through a spiritual station called bazaar, which means no place 457 00:36:25,850 --> 00:36:27,490 or interspace. 458 00:36:28,030 --> 00:36:34,930 So Sufis had a concept and a word for no place 200 years before Thomas More 459 00:36:34,930 --> 00:36:39,010 came up with the word utopia, meaning literally no place. 460 00:36:41,250 --> 00:36:46,850 Kuali is utopian, not just in the state it tries to induce, but in its communal 461 00:36:46,850 --> 00:36:52,570 endeavour. Just like house, this is music as individual and shared 462 00:36:53,930 --> 00:36:56,510 This was not religion with a capital R. 463 00:36:56,970 --> 00:37:01,850 The Sufis were really about connecting with the common man, with the guy 464 00:37:01,850 --> 00:37:06,890 in the fields, the guy living in the villages, to give the ordinary person 465 00:37:06,890 --> 00:37:12,310 kind of spiritual nourishment, some kind of way of understanding their place in 466 00:37:12,310 --> 00:37:13,310 the universe. 467 00:37:27,530 --> 00:37:31,490 But what if we don't have to escape firebugs or spiritualism at all? 468 00:37:31,690 --> 00:37:37,550 What if the way to get to the good place of utopia is to appreciate more fully 469 00:37:37,550 --> 00:37:42,290 ordinary everyday reality, the wonder of the moment? 470 00:37:48,290 --> 00:37:54,290 This is Clapping Music, written and here performed by the American composer 471 00:37:54,290 --> 00:37:55,290 Steve Rice. 472 00:37:55,850 --> 00:37:58,750 Reich was inspired by traditional drumming patterns. 473 00:37:59,070 --> 00:38:03,930 One performer in each pair is providing the rhythm while the other is clapping 474 00:38:03,930 --> 00:38:06,910 the same pattern but phasing in and out of tempo. 475 00:38:07,250 --> 00:38:11,370 The result is one of the classics of pure minimalism. 476 00:38:24,230 --> 00:38:27,450 To imagine what people will feel when you write a piece of music, it's 477 00:38:27,450 --> 00:38:31,090 impossible. Where you sit in the room, who you are, what you have for dinner, 478 00:38:31,130 --> 00:38:36,050 all these things will enter into how you... Even the same piece played... The 479 00:38:36,050 --> 00:38:39,370 same piece played at another time and place. Music lives when it's played. 480 00:38:42,690 --> 00:38:48,970 Steve Reich has pushed musical boundaries by encouraging audiences to 481 00:38:48,970 --> 00:38:52,490 less. He simplifies music to its purest form. 482 00:38:52,970 --> 00:38:57,150 using repetition and also real -world sound as instruments. 483 00:39:01,190 --> 00:39:05,490 There's this constant set of astonishing innovations. 484 00:39:06,150 --> 00:39:12,130 You're taking sound sounds, you're looping, you're effective proto 485 00:39:12,270 --> 00:39:16,050 you're... using tape right well the words probably didn't exist when they 486 00:39:16,050 --> 00:39:18,710 that it was called tape loops and tape this and tape that and now most people 487 00:39:18,710 --> 00:39:25,110 see a tape they think of scotch tape audio tape is something that they may or 488 00:39:25,110 --> 00:39:27,970 may not have heard of and certainly rarely seen 489 00:39:27,970 --> 00:39:34,690 sticky life 490 00:39:34,690 --> 00:39:41,270 reich's 1995 composition uses found sound that he himself recorded in new 491 00:39:44,620 --> 00:39:50,220 With it, he asked us to cut through the chaos of the city noise and find music 492 00:39:50,220 --> 00:39:52,220 and poetry in the everyday. 493 00:39:55,220 --> 00:40:01,800 The integration of the sound is basically the idea of marrying, if you 494 00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:06,300 sound sound of the street, the slam of the car door becomes the bass sound, and 495 00:40:06,300 --> 00:40:09,920 the air brakes becomes the crash sound. 496 00:40:10,350 --> 00:40:17,290 the Porsche horn becomes an oboe, and so on and so forth. And I think that kind 497 00:40:17,290 --> 00:40:22,410 of thinking is what's in city life, where you take something that's not a 498 00:40:22,410 --> 00:40:26,550 musical sound, and you think, what's the musical correlative of that? 499 00:40:30,170 --> 00:40:36,290 Reich's work is meditative, like House and Koali, but also technically 500 00:40:36,290 --> 00:40:38,270 of musicians and audiences alike. 501 00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:44,400 I get a sense with Reich of the restless explorer, a utopian testing of what's 502 00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:45,400 musically possible. 503 00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:52,160 Is your musical drive somehow utopian? I think every artist who's 504 00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:59,080 released an experience is slightly self -critical, and therefore there's more 505 00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:01,520 in my trash basket than there is in the finished piece. 506 00:41:01,740 --> 00:41:06,320 So that is certainly trying to make sure that you do your best. 507 00:41:06,860 --> 00:41:13,440 I think that striving to do the very best job that you can do is a very good 508 00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:14,840 fairly common human trait. 509 00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:20,280 I mean, I certainly hope that the sound man, you know, is trying to, and the 510 00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,420 cameraman, are trying to do the best that they can. 511 00:41:28,260 --> 00:41:33,280 Whether it's Steve Wright's music of the everyday world or the lure of Koali's 512 00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:39,040 higher spiritual plane, This pursuit of utopia is all about more fully 513 00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:41,400 experiencing a fleeting moment. 514 00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:45,120 It's about the utopia of the now. 515 00:41:47,860 --> 00:41:53,100 How do we get the best out of each moment, and as a result, out of 516 00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:59,740 For the Japanese, one way to connect with the pure moment is to represent it 517 00:41:59,740 --> 00:42:01,120 express it through haiku. 518 00:42:01,770 --> 00:42:06,790 The ancient art of extremely precise and brief poetry. 519 00:42:07,890 --> 00:42:12,010 6am. The cat's tongue in my ear. 520 00:42:14,250 --> 00:42:15,470 Sorry, that's disgusting. 521 00:42:16,690 --> 00:42:17,690 That's brilliant. 522 00:42:17,910 --> 00:42:19,390 It's really good, though. 523 00:42:20,150 --> 00:42:22,410 Maximum impact with minimum words. 524 00:42:22,910 --> 00:42:25,050 Perfection using the fewest syllables. 525 00:42:25,550 --> 00:42:29,870 That's the utopian goal of these members of the British Haiku Society. 526 00:42:30,540 --> 00:42:32,280 meeting in Fleet Street, London. 527 00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:37,620 Apple blossom, the clenched fist of her infant, opening. 528 00:42:38,420 --> 00:42:43,240 The image of the child's hand opening but also like apple blossom opening, I 529 00:42:43,240 --> 00:42:45,380 think it's really beautiful and very powerful. 530 00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:52,720 Haiku is a very short poem and its purpose is to capture a moment. 531 00:42:52,940 --> 00:42:58,160 If you see something beautiful and you describe that in some way that lets the 532 00:42:58,160 --> 00:42:59,400 person who's reading it know. 533 00:43:00,410 --> 00:43:03,910 what you're feeling about it. That's a beautiful haiku. 534 00:43:04,250 --> 00:43:08,090 First coffee, the bereavement of overnight mascara. 535 00:43:09,250 --> 00:43:12,930 Yeah, it's a very sharp observation, and, you know, there's an untold story 536 00:43:12,930 --> 00:43:14,050 behind it. Yeah. 537 00:43:14,310 --> 00:43:16,090 We all just imagine. 538 00:43:16,950 --> 00:43:20,970 There are haiku that you just think, oh, of course! 539 00:43:21,930 --> 00:43:24,430 Or, oh, I know that feeling. 540 00:43:24,830 --> 00:43:28,050 You could call it the aha moment, that moment when you go, wow! 541 00:43:29,100 --> 00:43:33,880 Bear, in your bathroom, another girl uses my rose petal mouthwash. 542 00:43:36,820 --> 00:43:40,200 Achieving the aha moment comes with limitations. 543 00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:47,640 The sky is bluer, always on the other side, upchucking homeless. 544 00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:51,580 The only problem with it, of course, is it's not a haiku moment. 545 00:43:52,540 --> 00:43:55,440 You've set yourself quite tight parameters. 546 00:43:55,960 --> 00:44:02,240 Do you find that... or do you find it actually liberating? It makes you think 547 00:44:02,240 --> 00:44:07,000 very hard, and I think that's the joy of it, really. 548 00:44:07,240 --> 00:44:12,960 So it's limiting, but it's limiting in a very thoughtful kind of way. 549 00:44:13,220 --> 00:44:14,440 It's a bit like meditation. 550 00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:16,760 You're focusing on one thing. 551 00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:21,020 And Quayside, the fisherman casting out shadows. 552 00:44:21,940 --> 00:44:23,620 Oh, that's great. 553 00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:31,460 It seems to me that this is really very, very much about living in a moment and 554 00:44:31,460 --> 00:44:35,920 being aware of the fact that we are living in a moment. One of the problems 555 00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:41,280 people have, I think, is that they have this running commentary on their life. 556 00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:43,900 And so when they're out and about... 557 00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:49,560 What they're doing is actually thinking all the time of, you know, what the 558 00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:54,860 credit card limit is, what time is the train, you know, is that girl going to 559 00:44:54,860 --> 00:44:56,380 there or whatever or whatever. 560 00:44:56,620 --> 00:45:00,940 Now, the haiku writer has to step back from that, switch off the running 561 00:45:00,940 --> 00:45:03,780 commentary of your life. And I think that's why it's so popular with them 562 00:45:03,780 --> 00:45:08,000 Buddhists. Absolutely. Because the whole stuff about moments and being in the 563 00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,280 now. It's being in that state of being aware. 564 00:45:11,580 --> 00:45:12,640 Do you feel that... 565 00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:19,660 After you've finished writing, you go back into the real world, better, 566 00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:22,880 enriched, improved. 567 00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:28,020 I think so, yes, because you're seeing things anew. 568 00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:35,820 Every time you write a good haiku, it's a small epiphany. You've seen the world 569 00:45:35,820 --> 00:45:36,920 for what it is. 570 00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:43,500 Martin Lucas, who was an outstanding haiku writer who died recently, he 571 00:45:43,500 --> 00:45:45,420 about haiku being the news. 572 00:45:46,020 --> 00:45:50,840 You know, all the stuff that's happening on television, that isn't the real 573 00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:53,420 news. The real news is haiku. 574 00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:55,900 If you read haiku, you get the truth. 575 00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:02,920 It's time for me to pursue epiphany. You need to bear in mind, I've never tried 576 00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:04,740 to write a haiku before this morning. 577 00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:08,760 I've come up with my own haiku about utopia. 578 00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:13,860 No place, better place. 579 00:46:14,340 --> 00:46:16,740 Imagine, contest, repeat. 580 00:46:17,140 --> 00:46:19,040 The itch, unscratch. 581 00:46:20,420 --> 00:46:25,300 Well, it needs to be about a moment, really. And it's not, is it? 582 00:46:26,030 --> 00:46:29,570 No. No. And it's got commas in it. We don't do commas in haiku. 583 00:46:29,850 --> 00:46:30,850 Oh, we do sometimes. 584 00:46:30,950 --> 00:46:32,550 Very occasionally, but not all those. 585 00:46:32,950 --> 00:46:35,170 Yeah, but you're supposed to be listening to me read it. 586 00:46:35,630 --> 00:46:38,030 You're reading on my shoulder. 587 00:46:39,370 --> 00:46:45,210 OK, I might not be a haiku master, but I'm still struck by the haiku writer's 588 00:46:45,210 --> 00:46:48,490 desire to record perfectly the moment's perfection. 589 00:46:49,240 --> 00:46:52,860 Sometimes it's quite tragic, what you're writing. It's something quite sad and 590 00:46:52,860 --> 00:46:54,260 moving. Sometimes it's hilarious. 591 00:46:54,700 --> 00:46:59,140 Sometimes it's beautiful and succinct. But it's always looking for something 592 00:46:59,140 --> 00:47:00,140 better. 593 00:47:01,060 --> 00:47:02,740 I think you're utopian. 594 00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:08,480 That kind of glimpse of a fleeting moment or of something in transition 595 00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:12,760 reflects our relationship to utopia in that it's never something that can be 596 00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:13,760 experienced completely. 597 00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:15,220 It's always glimpsed. 598 00:47:18,570 --> 00:47:23,010 Getting that glimpse of a better place that might just help us to be better 599 00:47:23,010 --> 00:47:28,110 people. It seems to me that we try to unpack the significance of an observed 600 00:47:28,110 --> 00:47:32,990 moment in many ways, not just through poetry, but through other art forms. 601 00:47:33,310 --> 00:47:39,050 We love to be transported by storytelling, and no more so than 602 00:47:39,990 --> 00:47:42,650 At multiplexes and in the theatres. 603 00:47:42,970 --> 00:47:47,510 or at home with our various screens, I think we seek out the truth of other 604 00:47:47,510 --> 00:47:50,910 people's experiences in ways akin to reading a haiku. 605 00:47:51,650 --> 00:47:57,490 Here, we live precariously through actors' experiences, moving out of 606 00:47:57,490 --> 00:47:59,470 and connecting emotionally. 607 00:48:00,530 --> 00:48:05,050 People go to the theatre, people watch movies to see life in all its facets, 608 00:48:05,190 --> 00:48:07,790 sometimes life as it is, but also sometimes life as it could be. 609 00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:13,760 People being more connected, more expressive, more loving, more 610 00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:16,900 more of whatever, to have that additional intensity, that additional 611 00:48:16,900 --> 00:48:20,700 lifefulness. And I think improvisation can really be a way that if actors 612 00:48:20,700 --> 00:48:24,620 embrace it, you can have a performance that just gives so much more to an 613 00:48:24,620 --> 00:48:27,100 audience because it's so much more alive, so much more rich, so much more 614 00:48:27,660 --> 00:48:33,820 A makes a shape, B joins, stay there for a moment, and then A says, thank you. 615 00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,440 Chris Hyman is an award -winning director. 616 00:48:37,130 --> 00:48:39,330 and an improvisation teacher at RADA. 617 00:48:39,730 --> 00:48:44,130 You're not trying to create, I would say. You're just noticing your own 618 00:48:44,130 --> 00:48:45,130 to what you're doing. 619 00:48:46,190 --> 00:48:51,510 Here in South London, he's running a workshop using improvisation to help 620 00:48:51,510 --> 00:48:56,250 lose their self -consciousness so as to bring greater authenticity to their 621 00:48:56,250 --> 00:48:57,250 performances. 622 00:48:57,950 --> 00:48:59,890 One of the reasons why people act? 623 00:49:00,110 --> 00:49:03,290 You get more permission to be angry or sad or whatever it is. 624 00:49:03,790 --> 00:49:06,870 And impulse is also what we're looking for, right? As an actor, between your 625 00:49:06,870 --> 00:49:08,450 impulse and your expression, there is nothing. 626 00:49:11,290 --> 00:49:16,330 Improvisation like this is inspired by the utopian performance ideas of Jerzy 627 00:49:16,330 --> 00:49:21,270 Krotowski and the Poor Theatre School, which revolutionized acting in the 20th 628 00:49:21,270 --> 00:49:22,270 century. 629 00:49:22,890 --> 00:49:27,410 Overturning old -fashioned declamatory styles, Krotowski argued for a 630 00:49:27,410 --> 00:49:31,570 transparent actor, a kind of minimalism in acting. 631 00:49:32,090 --> 00:49:36,350 The idea being that you have an actor who is so transparent that any inner 632 00:49:36,350 --> 00:49:37,990 impulse is immediately expressed. 633 00:49:38,210 --> 00:49:43,250 So there's no filter, there's no armour, there's nothing in between the actual 634 00:49:43,250 --> 00:49:46,630 impulse happening within and the outer expression. There's something that I 635 00:49:46,630 --> 00:49:50,990 feel, there's something very, very raw and exciting also for an audience to 636 00:49:50,990 --> 00:49:52,430 watch and something to aspire towards. 637 00:49:54,970 --> 00:50:00,510 These ideas have been hugely influential in experimental theatre from Brecht to 638 00:50:00,510 --> 00:50:06,360 Brook. The key insight, it seems to me, is that all performances are unique. 639 00:50:06,660 --> 00:50:09,980 A collaboration between performer and audience. 640 00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:15,480 And there's something very generous here. The performer taking a risk, 641 00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:20,380 back the mask, burying their inner self to create an empathic connection with an 642 00:50:20,380 --> 00:50:24,160 audience. That was weird. We kind of had a... We're going to have a fight. 643 00:50:24,460 --> 00:50:26,500 And then it was kind of, I'm... 644 00:50:26,830 --> 00:50:29,950 Being a bit submissive there. Is this some kind of S andM thing? 645 00:50:30,210 --> 00:50:33,610 Then I would kind of stop my brain, stop my brain, what's going on? And then 646 00:50:33,610 --> 00:50:37,130 your face, kind of change it to, like, more grace in your face. 647 00:50:37,550 --> 00:50:39,030 So, yeah, a whole heap. 648 00:50:39,330 --> 00:50:43,170 What I would say, if you as an actor have the courage to wait until something 649 00:50:43,170 --> 00:50:48,030 genuinely comes to you as an impulse, you might become dangerous without even 650 00:50:48,030 --> 00:50:50,730 trying, simply because you have the courage to wait for something to 651 00:50:50,730 --> 00:50:51,730 trigger something. 652 00:50:52,270 --> 00:50:56,170 It seemed to me that there was a kind of peeling away of, 653 00:50:57,040 --> 00:51:01,600 actually conventions in order to liberate them a little bit. One of the 654 00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:08,060 that I remember from reading Grotowski's works is this idea of additive art 655 00:51:08,060 --> 00:51:12,380 versus subtractive art, meaning that in painting, you start with an empty canvas 656 00:51:12,380 --> 00:51:16,820 and you keep adding the paint, whereas in sculpting, you chip away stuff in 657 00:51:16,820 --> 00:51:19,080 order to reveal what's already there. 658 00:51:21,740 --> 00:51:24,960 And that is definitely the kind of approach that I take to actor training. 659 00:51:25,460 --> 00:51:29,820 It's not about slapping more and more skills onto the actor. It's about 660 00:51:29,820 --> 00:51:36,680 them to let go of unhelpful thoughts, behaviors, expectations, to come 661 00:51:36,680 --> 00:51:41,480 back to something that is more pure, that's already there, almost like a 662 00:51:43,990 --> 00:51:49,250 Searching for authentic moments in drama and storytelling is, I think, more than 663 00:51:49,250 --> 00:51:53,530 an escape from the humdrum of daily life. It's about something much bigger, 664 00:51:53,630 --> 00:51:55,350 connecting with others. 665 00:51:55,650 --> 00:52:00,730 Every time we tell a story, every time we enjoy a performance, every time we 666 00:52:00,730 --> 00:52:05,390 think we can feel someone else's feelings, we're exercising one of the 667 00:52:05,390 --> 00:52:06,450 important traits, 668 00:52:07,250 --> 00:52:10,890 empathy. The more empathetic we are... 669 00:52:11,150 --> 00:52:15,750 the more generous and tolerant we become as human beings, perhaps the closer we 670 00:52:15,750 --> 00:52:17,430 get to utopia. 671 00:52:23,430 --> 00:52:29,550 This kind of generosity, this sharing of moving and thought -provoking art, has 672 00:52:29,550 --> 00:52:31,150 a long and rich history. 673 00:52:31,490 --> 00:52:37,310 For me, one of the most extraordinary attempts to connect was made by a 19th 674 00:52:37,310 --> 00:52:38,310 -century composer. 675 00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:52,980 Idealizing utopian visions from Norse myth, Richard Wagner tried to create a 676 00:52:52,980 --> 00:52:57,340 total reality in which audiences could emotionally immerse themselves. 677 00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:02,260 Total art, work that is complete in and of itself. 678 00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:09,320 This might seem like the naive controlling dream of a troubled genius, 679 00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:14,360 there's something undeniably generous in Wagner's desire to share a fantastical 680 00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:19,740 vision. that might inspire audiences to reflect anew on life 681 00:53:19,740 --> 00:53:26,320 wagner's passion has certainly shaped one man's life lovely day 682 00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:32,120 builder martin graham connected with wagner so much he dreamed of staging 683 00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:37,700 wagner's work in his back garden deep in the cotswolds just in case i ever fancy 684 00:53:37,700 --> 00:53:42,400 building an opera house yes in my backyard how long does it take does that 685 00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:44,910 dreaming about it yeah Definitely. Oh, yes. 686 00:53:45,230 --> 00:53:46,230 Yes. 687 00:53:51,350 --> 00:53:56,610 Over the years, Martin transformed the cowshed next to his house into a fully 688 00:53:56,610 --> 00:54:02,470 functioning opera house, complete with 500 hand -me -down seats from a Royal 689 00:54:02,470 --> 00:54:03,850 Opera House refit. 690 00:54:04,970 --> 00:54:10,270 His labour of love has now staged the whole of Wagner's 15 -hour -long Ring 691 00:54:10,270 --> 00:54:11,270 Cycle. 692 00:54:24,230 --> 00:54:30,990 Is there a parallel between Wagner's total work of art, this vision 693 00:54:30,990 --> 00:54:36,070 of the full encompassing experience for the audience, and the vision that you 694 00:54:36,070 --> 00:54:37,070 had here? 695 00:54:37,430 --> 00:54:38,450 Well, of course. 696 00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:43,080 I didn't think of it in that way when I started. I just thought I want to build 697 00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:47,620 the theatre and then we'll build the pit and then we'll build the orchestra. But 698 00:54:47,620 --> 00:54:54,480 in fact, as we went on, people modified their views and thought, well, 699 00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:57,900 maybe it is possible. Maybe he isn't completely nuts. 700 00:55:08,650 --> 00:55:12,550 When you listen to Wagner, where does it take your mind? 701 00:55:13,810 --> 00:55:20,550 It's fantasy and it's magical and it's emotional and it really tears your 702 00:55:20,550 --> 00:55:21,550 out. 703 00:55:28,590 --> 00:55:31,870 Perhaps it all comes back again to innocence. 704 00:55:32,250 --> 00:55:34,830 Martin Graham's fascination with the magical. 705 00:55:35,390 --> 00:55:40,750 started with something we might all remember and recognise, a child's 706 00:55:43,130 --> 00:55:47,730 When I was a little boy, I used to go out in the fields, and the first thing I 707 00:55:47,730 --> 00:55:52,170 did when I got out of sight so people could see me is I put my hand over one 708 00:55:52,170 --> 00:55:57,450 eye. And I used to call that my dark eye, and it took me to another world. 709 00:55:57,890 --> 00:56:03,970 And it was a little bit of childish fantasy, and it still comes back to me 710 00:56:03,970 --> 00:56:04,759 a lot. 711 00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:11,220 If you just want to extract yourself from the world and go into the arts, 712 00:56:11,220 --> 00:56:13,560 do that and you're away. 713 00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:21,000 What I find remarkable is that Martin Graham has kept his curiosity and his 714 00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:26,640 enthusiasm for the arts and has also had the self -belief and drive to share 715 00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:27,880 what he loves with others. 716 00:56:30,480 --> 00:56:35,500 I do feel that there is something utopian about this, that you are 717 00:56:35,500 --> 00:56:37,200 better place here. 718 00:56:37,780 --> 00:56:41,440 There is. There's something absolutely tremendous, because it's like a love 719 00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:45,680 affair. Once you get going, there is a reciprocity. 720 00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:50,320 And the sort of people who, your customers who pay you good money... 721 00:56:50,940 --> 00:56:55,260 and don't mind the odd leaking roof, they're the giants of it all because 722 00:56:55,260 --> 00:57:01,080 they're just endorsing you and encouraging you and saying, go on. And 723 00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:03,240 course, they are part of the joint enterprise. 724 00:57:03,620 --> 00:57:09,000 It's a wonderful, magical feeling to think all those people enjoyed 725 00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:15,240 for a four -hour, five -hour evening and come out literally beaming with joy. 726 00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:17,140 For some... 727 00:57:17,710 --> 00:57:20,110 I think it's almost a religious experience. 728 00:57:26,010 --> 00:57:32,190 In art, in life, to believe in greater than ourselves is an act of imagination, 729 00:57:32,310 --> 00:57:39,250 of closing the eye, of temporarily letting go and moving into a better 730 00:57:40,690 --> 00:57:43,270 From Thomas More to Sid Meier. 731 00:57:45,210 --> 00:57:50,180 Explorers... to feminists hedonists to artists 732 00:57:50,180 --> 00:57:56,960 visionaries and communal pioneers the steps we have taken to improve 733 00:57:56,960 --> 00:58:03,480 our world sometimes in the face of great adversity have all started within our 734 00:58:03,480 --> 00:58:09,120 imaginations these dreams are deeply personal and at the same time 735 00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:10,120 communal 736 00:58:10,670 --> 00:58:15,110 And although utopias fail, although our gains can be lost, I think that Thomas 737 00:58:15,110 --> 00:58:19,630 More would be proud that the urge to hope for better, for which he coined a 738 00:58:19,630 --> 00:58:24,650 name, has become something that humans show no sign of losing. 739 00:58:33,770 --> 00:58:35,930 Coming up, Sicilian sunshine. 740 00:58:36,700 --> 00:58:42,080 And our favorite Italian inspector, Salvo Montalbano, is back, and with 741 00:58:42,080 --> 00:58:44,800 chance to see the first of the new series, next.